Good Typography Friday

It's Good Friday and kids are out of school, offices are closed, and people are thinking about the Lord and the long weekend.

What better time to talk typography?

Do you know or even care what type font, spacing choices, or font size you use in briefs?

If "New Times Roman" is your default get the hail out of here.

Luckily, the 7th Circuit provides a wonderful, easy to understand tutorial on how best to present your briefs from a typographical perspective, offering useful tips on proportional spacing, serifs, and all other kinds of wonky technical junk that writers get into but everyone else yawns about.

Perfect for a day like today.

I like this piece of advice:

Typographic decisions should be made for a purpose. The Times of London chose the typeface Times New Roman to serve an audience looking for a quick read. Lawyers don’t want their audience to read fast and throw the document away; they want to maximize retention. Achieving that goal requires a different approach—different typefaces, different column widths, different writing conventions. Briefs are like books rather than newspapers. The most important piece of advice we can offer is this: read some good books and try to make your briefs more like them.

Read good books?  Oh man, I have to do that too?

Speaking of which, there are some fine writing tips offered in this new local blawg -- check it out.

Happy holidays!